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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803197">It will always be you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeoLinden/pseuds/GeoLinden'>GeoLinden</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Avenger reader - Freeform, Avengers Family, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Domestic Avengers, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Iron Man - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:48:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803197</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeoLinden/pseuds/GeoLinden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The snap has happened, the return of Wakanda has not been as you all expected, but now you have to face reality, and you just can’t stop thinking about him, about Tony.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tony Stark &amp; Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark &amp; Reader, Tony Stark/Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It will always be you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.</p><p>My Tumblr: https://ladyeliot.tumblr.com</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Life is a continuous struggle of choices that you have to make without stopping to think for a second. It is said that hope is the last thing to be lost, probably because the choice you made almost left you without it. You must also learn that happiness is the last thing to be found, probably because the choice you have made has made you unhappier than you will ever be. Your life has been full of choices, you might have regretted many of them, but you decided at the time to make them, so you never allowed yourself to regret your actions, until that day.</p><p>Three weeks after Thanos snapped, hope was completely lost. The new facility has been uncharacteristically silent, no one has been able to say more than two words in a row, and you had barely managed to say one since your return from Wakanda. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner and you, those were the surviving Avengers, the ones that life had given you a second chance, but it didn’t really feel like one.</p><p>You were in your old room, old because two years ago one of your decisions had taken you away from that place, yes, you were against the Sokovia Accords, that had led you to take the side of the Captain and to fight against the side of Iron Man, who had been the person who had saved you from the madness that your powers had generated in your mind. But even if you had turned against him, you knew you owed him everything. Evidently this was something he didn’t understand, which led to a wide rift that had never been bridged on either side, and which led to a breakdown in your relationship of closeness.</p><p>Every corner of that room had been kept exactly as you had left it that night when you fled with Wanda. Your drawings together with the charcoals scattered on the desk, the book ‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust on the bedside table and that bracelet that Tony had given you for your 26th birthday that you had left next to the open jewellery box on the bed. It was really painful to see all of this, knowing that those facilities would probably never be what they once were, that Wanda would not suddenly appear at your door, that you would never sit around the dinner table and that Tony would not occupy the armchair next to your bed to try to cheer you up after a mission that hadn’t gone so well. You didn’t know whether frustration was taking over the fear and sadness or whether you just didn’t know how to control your feelings on that occasion.</p><p>The days were long, each of you working in silence trying to make sense of what had happened, looking for a solution that would never come to the problem. You shared the hours, but the solitude that enveloped you was too austere to realise that there was a person by your side. You didn’t know Thanos’ location, however, even if you did, especially if you did, it had become clear that you could not stand alone against his entire army.</p><p>“Would you like some?” asked Natasha offering you a plate with a veggie sandwich on it, which you took with an almost soundless 'thank you’.</p><p>Yes, actually that had been your first word in five days, since you said goodnight to Bruce last Sunday, food and sleep were not high on your priorities, especially when you spent the night using your telepathic detection trying to find some sign of life that would make you believe Tony was alive, but it was useless. Your psionic senses allowed you to track any sentient being, you were able to scan large areas, but your ability did not address the entire universe.</p><p>That night your spirits seemed to be running low to the ground, three weeks without having achieved anything that would allow you to have any lucidity in your plans was too long as the situation stood. You could hear in the background a soft murmur coming from a conversation between Natasha and Steve, but you weren’t really paying attention to it, it was all in your thoughts. But at that instant, an inner burst made them evaporate. A signal came into your brain, a psionic emanation that alerted you to the presence of a spaceship entering the stratosphere, with a fixed direction, yours. You rose from your chair, standing upright, capturing the attention of the people around you. You closed your eyes, heightening all your senses, taking in all the information that was coming to you, at that moment you felt it. You opened your eyes and looked at them.</p><p>“He’s here,” were the only words you could utter before you rushed outside. Your companions soon followed your path, asking questions to explain what was happening, but your inner euphoria prevented you from saying a single word.</p><p>That ship appeared above you as you raced across the garden, night was falling relentlessly and you could only glimpse a halo of light that seemed to direct the ship as it landed delicately on the wide grassy esplanade. The five of you paused, taking in the scene, discovering how a side door opened to project a flight of stairs. When you saw his face for the first time your lungs deflated, letting out all the air they had accumulated over a long period of time. Your body went rigid and you didn’t react until Steve ran past you and approached the ship to help him down.</p><p>He looked terrible, it was evident in every facial feature and in his body movements, you knew what you had been through, but you had no idea what Tony had been through since his disappearance in New York, although you could get a pretty good idea. Before your eyes were Steve and Tony in custody, reunited again, after all that had happened, none of it mattered, at least not to you, and perhaps you had a vain hope that it didn’t matter to anyone else either. Even so you didn’t know how to act when your eyes connected with his, for a slight moment you wanted to approach him, offer him a hug and tell him that you were relieved to discover that he was there, with you, after all, but you chose to stay where you were, next to Natasha.</p><p>It wasn’t until you headed inside that the stiffness disappeared from your body. A whispered 'are you okay’ from Steve made you react again and pay attention to Natasha’s words that were projecting all the information gathered during those days.</p><p>“The governments are destroyed,” she reported as she projected images showing the missing, like Wilson, Maximoff and Parker, among others, “the working parts are trying to do a census, and it looks like he did it. He did what he said he would do. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living things.”</p><p>Silence echoed around you, you were sitting in an armchair, somewhat away from the other members, playing with your fingers, trying not to look up, until he spoke.</p><p>“Where is he now?” asked Tony. “Where?”</p><p>“We don’t know,” Steve informed him from beside you, sitting at a table. “He opened a portal and went through it. We looked for Thanos for three weeks, with deep space scanners,” Steve looked at you, “and satellites, and we found nothing.” He looked at Tony. “Tony, you fought him.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” asked Tony from his wheelchair. “I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the wizard gave away the store. That’s what happened, there’s no fight…”</p><p>You took a breath and sighed, because you could contemplate what was about to happen right now, the nerves were there along with the negativity and failure of some of the superheroes on that planet and others, and you knew it could explode at any moment.</p><p>“Tony, I’m going to need you to focus…” Steve repeated again hoping that Tony would offer him some clue as to the whereabouts of Thanos.</p><p>“I needed you,” interrupted Tony in a raised tone. “as in past tense.  That trumps what you need. It’s too late, buddy. Sorry.” He used a second of his silence to look at Steve and another second to look at you, who stood beside him. You took in most of the feelings hidden in his gaze, and none of them were positive or forgiving. “You know what I need? I need a shave,” he tried to get out of the wheelchair, taking everything on the table in his stride. “I don’t believe I ever remember telling you this…” he ripped out the IV that connected the drip to his left arm. “To the living and the dead, What we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not,” he looked back at you and Steve repeatedly. “That’s what we needed!”</p><p>The discussion continued, avoiding an upset Tony explaining everything he thought about the current and past situation, ignoring the suggestions Rhodes was giving him to calm down and take his seat again.</p><p>”[…] Bunch of tired old wheels!“ he pointed at Steve. "I got nothin’ for you, Cap! I’ve got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options! Zero, zip, nada. No trust - liar.”</p><p>Almost ipso facto he turned to you ripped off the reactor prostrate on his chest and handed it to Steve in his hand, leaving those present virtually speechless, if you still had any left.</p><p>“Here, take this. You’ll find him, if you put that on. You hide-”</p><p>After those words you gazed again into his eyes full of resentment at the past, before his body could take it no more and he collapsed in the middle of the room.</p><p>In the hours that followed, you were the shadow of a ghost gazing at him from a distance from the door frame of one of the recovery rooms in the new complex. On the one hand fearing his reaction against you when he woke up, while on the other hand wanting to hear it because you knew that sooner or later it would come but you wanted it to come as soon as possible so that you could face it. Those words she had said to Steve were harsh, but they were really nothing to what you expected might happen. It seemed absurd at the time to have entertained the idea that it might have been forgotten.</p><p>“Bruce gave him a sedative,” Rhodes said, looking up at you, who were leaning against the doorframe. “He’ll be unconscious for the rest of the day. Do you want to sit down?”</p><p>“No…I’d better…” but Rhodes didn’t allow you to finish your words, as he had risen from the armchair next to Tony and offered it to you. “Thank you.”</p><p>The door to the room ajar to offer you some more privacy. As you turned your gaze towards him you realised the fragility his body conveyed in those moments, he had spent weeks wandering through space not knowing if he was going to get the chance to return home again and yet he had been able to stay alive and find himself there. You closed your eyes and settled back on the couch, you remembered the first time you did that with Tony, he had spent too much time without sleep after the events after the Chitauri invasion, he could barely sleep because of the nightmares and he begged you to stop them every night, so with your eyes closed you concentrated and invaded his mind with caution releasing the tension you found in it and giving him the peace he needed. When you opened your eyes again, her expression seemed to have changed, she seemed to have found some relief inside her, that fact made you smile. But a knock on the door woke you up.</p><p>“We need to talk,” Steve’s words sounded serious.</p><p>A new piece of information about Thanos’ whereabouts came as a surprise, but for you the surprise came right after.</p><p>“Wait, is this some kind of punishment or something?” you said completely dumbfounded, just outside the room where Tony was, with what Steve was proposing. “Why me?”</p><p>“Because we need someone to stay with Tony,” he said calmly crossing his arms.</p><p>“Is it because I’m the smallest of the whole team? Because I could really knock you all out right now with the blink of an eye,” you said crossing your arms too.</p><p>“It’s because Tony needs you,” Steve lowered his tone, “and you need him.”</p><p>There was nothing but truth in those words. You didn’t know if Tony really needed you, but what you had assumed was that you’d needed him for a long time, and you’d put a lot of things before that need, creating your close relationship to go to shit, basically.</p><p>“I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you on this mission,” Steve said frankly. “And he wouldn’t forgive me either if I said that happened.”</p><p>You lowered your face as you nodded, accepting his words and the job you had been given.</p><p>“Be very careful,” you said before Steve disappeared from in front of you to take a path that you had no idea what could be in store for them.</p><p>From that moment on, the hours went by really slowly, you took your position in that armchair again, you needed to have a clear mind, you couldn’t continue martyring yourself with all the events that had happened, so you started reading 'In Search of Lost Time’, that book that had been forgotten on the bedside table since you left that place. News was nil, you barely got a sign of what might be happening and you knew it would probably be days before you got it. </p><p>Night was falling on the compound again, Tony was barely making any sign of waking up, which also gave you time to consider how the situation would play out, and various possibilities for coping with it. Some of his belongings had been salvaged from the ship, and his helmet, or rather what was left of it, stared at you from the dresser in the room. Without having a reason in mind you approached him, causing a blue light to suddenly flash across his eyes, showing you his figure in the middle of the room.</p><p>
  <em>“Is it on?” a figure of a seated, completely haggard Tony appeared before your eyes. “Hey, Ms. Y/L/N, Y/N,” your brow furrowed, but you approached his reflection. “If you find this footage don’t put it on social media, it’ll be really tearful,” his words brought a sad smile to your face. “I don’t know if you’ll watch these videos. I don’t even know if you’re still… Oh god, I hope so…” there was a silence from his words, but you could see him bring his hands to his face, something inside you cracked. “I guess it’s easier to do this if you know the chances of seeing you again are practically nil,” something inside you made your heart shrink. “I probably should have realised this a lot sooner,” he fell silent, “yeah, but I was busy trying not to hate you too much, you know, when you decided to abandon me and choose the other side,” exhaustion almost prevented him from keeping his eyes open. “Anyway, anyway that made me realise how important you had been to me,” he let his gaze wander, “I tried to be there for you ever since I met you and… god, this is getting too depressing,” he ran his hand over his face. “I just want you to know that I wish you were here, because you’re the only person I’d like to share my last hours with,” he nodded slightly, you knew what he was trying to say with those words, which made your eyes water. “Don’t feel bad about this, I mean, if you stay prostrate for a couple of weeks… and then move on with immense guilt…” he hid his face in the palm of his hand and closed his eyes, you wiped away a tear that ran down your cheek keeping the bitter smile you had been wearing all along. “I want you to know… when I’ve fallen asleep, it will be like the nights we spent together. I’m fine. All right,” he gestured towards you. “I’ll dream of you. Because it will always be you.”</em>
</p><p>Suddenly, as if nothing had happened, his image disappeared in front of your eyes, leaving you with hundreds of feelings invading your body and mind. You looked up and there he was, still there, sleeping pleasantly, barely knowing what had just happened. You hurriedly wiped away the last tear running down your cheek and sat back down, putting your feet up on the couch, unable to take your eyes off him. Perhaps those thoughts were drawn from his most desperate moments, believing that his life was about to come to an end, perhaps he was unwilling to show them to you now that he had resumed the course of his life, so even though it was not possible you tried to send them to a hidden place in your mind.</p><p>You had hardly slept in those three weeks, your mind hadn’t rested for days and you didn’t know why, but finding yourself curled up in that armchair next to Tony was giving you back the tranquillity your body hadn’t known for too long. It was impossible to stop your eyelids from closing, on the contrary you were willing them to do so and for sleep to warmly invade your body, no matter how long you could stay asleep. That’s how it happened, making the hours pass without you even noticing. </p><p> </p><p>Like a little gust of wind, something in your body made the light enter through your eyelashes. Slowly you opened your eyes, feeling in various parts of your body a tightness due to the position in which you had fallen asleep in that armchair. You discovered that a woollen blanket covered your limbs, but what kept you alert was the bed next to you was completely empty. Tony wasn’t there. You jumped up, looking around, the bedroom door was ajar and Iron Man’s helmet was missing.</p><p>“Tony?” you asked, raising your voice, stepping out into the hallway. “Tony! Where are you?”</p><p>You barely heard an answer, so you were thankful those powers were within you, you stopped in the middle of the corridor and closed your eyes, your receptors picked up a signal coming from downstairs, it was him. You found him leaning on the kitchen counter, his eyes closed as he tried to stand. You ran to him, grabbing his arm to hold him up.</p><p>“What do you think you’re doing?” you said, leading him to the nearest armchair in the living room.</p><p>You discovered that he had shaved, taken a shower and was wearing one of his Tom Ford suits that were so recognisable to you. That meant he had been wandering around the house unsupervised for over an hour without waking you up. You knelt down next to him.</p><p>“Why didn’t you wake me up?” you asked with a worried look on your face as you contemplated that he was extremely tired. “Bruce gave a set of instructions for you to follow, you can’t just walk around…”</p><p>“It was your turn?” he cut you off with an angry tone. “Be my babysitter? How did you do it? Did you draw lots?” his countenance was serious, you could still see the puffiness in his eyes and his face fully dehydrated. “Whoever draws the shortest stick gets to look after poor Stark, all right, listen…”</p><p>“No! You listen to me,” you cut him off, raising your tone above his, standing up and resting your hands on each armrest “Tony, we all lost. We all fought and lost, none of us made it,” your face was three feet above his. “So now all we can do is try, in some completely illogical way, to move the situation forward. And if we can’t, at least look to the future by doing our best to honour those we have lost.”</p><p>Silence flooded over you.</p><p>“So please don’t make the situation more complicated,” you continued, lowering your tone, almost begging him. “If I’ve stayed with you it’s because Steve has made me understand some things, because yes, it wasn’t really my intention to stay with you from the start, but then I realised that if anyone had to stay with you it was me. I realised that if I had to risk my life again I didn’t want to go on the mission, because that would mean never seeing you again.And I’ve also realised that I’ve needed you for a long time, that I’m finally by your side and I have no intention of separating from you. Whether you like it or not.” Tony cut his gaze with yours by ducking it, but brought his right hand over yours.</p><p>That gesture provoked you to bring your other hand to his face, placing a gentle caress on his cheek.</p><p>“I know there are a lot of things we need to talk about, but one thing we do have is time,” you explained as Tony intertwined his fingers with yours. “So please, don’t do anything more stupid and don’t disappear,” maybe it was the atmosphere generated by the situation, but you risked saying the next words. “Because it will always be you.”</p><p>Tony closed his eyes a little regretfully, a little embarrassedly, and brought his free hand to his face.</p><p>“I knew you saw that,” he added calmly removing his hand from his face. “Well, at least I’ve saved myself from having to repeat it in person.”</p><p>“I’m not sure I got it right,” you said falsely. “You know, there was a lot of interference, and besides, I couldn’t really understand what you were saying, so…”</p><p>“Sorry, there was only one pass for the film,” he said wryly which caused you to smile widely as you rediscovered that the old Tony was still hidden in it. “We won’t know when there will be a revival.”</p><p>“Too bad, I really liked that movie,” you sat down on the armrest without letting go of his hand and looking up at him.</p><p>“Really?” he asked for the first time modestly, and putting aside all the irony that surrounded the situation.</p><p>“Totally,” you nodded, trying to express all the many feelings through your eyes.</p><p>Silence again kept you company, until Tony somewhat uncomfortably broke it.</p><p>“I suppose you know that by now I would have kissed you and created a fully effective plan to make love to you for hours until you begged me to stop in pleasure,” he stated lamely, “although I think if you give me a couple of hours…”</p><p>“All right, Don Juan,” you cut him off with a chuckle, “we’d better leave all that for later, and I’ll take you back to bed now.”</p><p>“I think it’s a good start if you take me to bed,” he continued with his insinuations.</p><p>You got up from the armrest and helped him put his arm around your shoulders, even though he repeatedly told you he could walk unaided. </p><p>“Have we heard from the team?” he asked, slowly climbing the steps of the ladder.</p><p>“Soon,” you said with a halo of hope. </p><p>You definitely made it back to the room, having made it successfully through the journey. You helped him get rid of the shoes and shirt that his pride had forced him to wear, but which now made no sense when he was going back to bed.</p><p>“See, you’re finally going to get what you wanted, I’m undressing you,” you said jokingly causing a smile to appear on Tony’s face as he lay back down. “You rest, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”</p>
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